How-To Series · Episode 01 / 59 · Module 1: Get Running

Hermes · What It Actually Is

An AI agent on your machine. Think of ChatGPT, except you own it, and it can do real work. The series opener.

After this video You can now decide if Hermes is for you.

Hermes is an AI agent that lives on your machine. Think of ChatGPT, except you own it, you run it in your terminal, and it uses tools to do real work. This video explains what Hermes is, three ways it differs from a chat assistant, and what the rest of the series will teach you.

About these resources. This opener is about the mental model, but the one-line install is right below if you want to start now. The Sources block names every Hermes docs page that backs a claim in the script, and Going Deeper links related guides. The full install walkthrough is E02.

Sources · What this video distills

3 docs pages · the pitch + the differentiators come from these
Primary · the headline pitch + the "self-improving" claim
Hermes Agent README
Read ↗
The "what is Hermes" framing and series structure
Docs Index
Read ↗
The "Who this is for" framing that defines the series audience
Quickstart
Read ↗

Commands shown · Copy and paste

the install one-liner · a head start before E02
A head start. E01 is the mental-model episode, but if you want to skip ahead, here is the install one-liner from the README: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash The full walkthrough is E02.

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

E02
One-Line Install
E03
Your First Chat
E07
The Five Slash Commands You'll Actually Use